It is easier for us because we train our children from infancy, build them up from the beginning to be resistant to the dark side, and keep them from being reared alongside those who hold to beliefs contrary to the Jedi Creed.”
“I don't believe it.”
“What?”
“You're proselytizing me — giving me a sermon on the blessed virtues of the Coruscanti Order! You should hear yourself."
"Well, you have to admit that if Anakin had been discovered at a young age and reared by us, he never would have grown up vulnerable to the temptations surrounding him now.
—Siri Tachi and Obi-Wan Kenobi
The Order of Coruscant was the daughter organization of the Holy Order of the Jedi Knights and the largest Jedi sect during the Clone Wars.
History[]
In the time before the Great Sith War, the Holy Order of the Jedi Knights was largely decentralized; there was no central leadership — Jedi only organized together en masse in times of great crisis — and beyond what was codified in the Jedi Creed, they held to no complex dogma. With the end of the devastating Great Sith War, however, the Jedi were left weak, fragmented, on the verge of collapse. Realizing they would need to evolve in order to preserve their Order, the twelve surviving Jedi masters decided to form a permanent Jedi Council, establishing their base of operations on the Republic capital world of Coruscant, where they would oversee the rebuilding of the Jedi Order with assistance from the Senate. This consolidated the Jedi, but at a cost; they became more rigid and hierarchical in the following three-thousand years, placing undue emphasis on tradition and ceremony.
With the New Sith Wars of 2000-1032 BBY, the Holy Order of the Jedi Knights entered its final stage of evolution. Over a thousand years of nigh-continuous conflict with the New Sith and their dark Jedi successors had hardened the Jedi, leaving many of them jaded and not a little bit angry. Feeling that the rise of the darksiders had coincided with some failure on their part, they decided to revamp their Order to purge it of weaknesses. In the five-hundred years following the New Sith Wars, the Holy Order of the Jedi Knights made a series of reforms:
- Anyone over five years of age — except in exceedingly rare cases — was automatically disqualified from joining the Jedi Order.
- Jedi — parents with multiple children exempted — could train only one apprentice at a time.
- Extended contact and/or communication with non-Jedi family members was prohibited.
- Marriage to non-Jedi was strictly forbidden.
Anyone caught violating these new rules were in danger of being stripped of their rank and excommunicated from the Order.
In uproarious retaliation against the reforms, billions of dissenting Jedi broke away from what was once the Jedi Order to form their own orders. This event became known as the Fifth Great Schism, the only schism within the Order which didn't involve Jedi falling to the dark side.
With the close of almost another five-hundred years — with the opening of the Clone Wars — the Order of Coruscant had become a de facto branch of the Republic military, answerable to the Senate with little autonomy. This ultimately made itself blatantly apparent in the Second Clone War, when most of the Coruscanti Jedi chose to fight under the banner of the the Galactic Republic against the Separatists, who had sought to secede from the Republic peacefully. The Coruscanti Jedi had become unquestioning enforcers of the Republic, upholding its ideals out of a sense of obligation rather than a sense of ethics. This failed to change even following the Galactic Republic's reformation into the Galactic Empire.
The emblem of the Universal Jedi Order, the organization which succeeded the Order of Coruscant.
With the close of the Clone Wars, corruption began taking hold of the Senate. Self-interested senators, they themselves in the pockets of the criminal syndicates, elected a figurehead emperor into office and used him to further their own ends to the detriment of the Imperial peoples. The Jedi saw this happening but were left with little to do to remedy the situation. This left them vulnerable to manipulation when Dantius Palpatine made his bid for power. A young senator from Nabu, Palpatine worked within the system to weed out the corrupt bureaucrats, promising a new golden age for the Empire. Entranced by this show of beneficence, they were left blind to Palpatine's inner darkness, which came to the fore soon after he was crowned emperor.
Once Emperor Palpatine began initiating his New Order, many of the disparate Jedi sects turned against him. The Coruscanti Jedi remained loyal, however, and Palpatine rewarded them handsomely for their devotion. Rechristening the Order of Coruscant the Universal Jedi Order, he officially declared it the only state-sanctioned — and legal — Jedi order.
Characteristics[]
Directly prior to the Clone Wars, 40% of all Jedi in the Known Regions had belonged to the Order of Coruscant. Following the end of the Clone Wars, they made up 75%. In either case, the Coruscanti Order was the largest Jedi sect prior to the Great Jedi Purge.
The Coruscanti Jedi wore charcoal gray uniforms. Depending on their rank, they also wore black outer tunics and cloaks.
The Coruscanti Jedi were divided up into three main classes: guardians, consulars, and sentinels. Jedi guardians specialized in the physical aspects of the Force, Jedi consulars in the spiritual aspects, with Jedi sentinels falling in between. To distinguish the guardians, consulars, and sentinels, each class wielded lightsabers of a different colour; Jedi guardians wielded lightsabers with yellow blades, Jedi consulars wielded blue blades, and Jedi sentinels wielded green blades. Not all Coruscanti Jedi followed this tradition; Tyrann Dohku retained the crimson-bladed weapon he had built as an Alderaanian Jedi, his son wielded an orange lightsaber later in life, and Mace Windu eventually wielded an electric purple blade.